Public servants ‘gaming the system’ — take twice as many sick days as private sector workers: report

2015/11/28 Leave a comment

While the data is correct, the interpretation that most people ‘game the system’ is more anecdotal than evidence-based (some clearly do of course).

While I support changes that reduce such abuse, I would want to preserve provisions for sick day banking in cases of catastrophic illness (e.g., cancer):

And the article is silent on Canada’s public servants take up to twice the number of sick days a year as private sector workers do, because of different motivations, work cultures and rules that encourage “gaming the system,” says a new report by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Phillip Cross, Statistics Canada’s former chief economic analyst, concludes in the report that the existing sick-leave regime in the federal government should be overhauled because attitudes and cultural practices “rather than biology and medicine” are at the root of the problem.

Cross, who made his name as a straight-shooting analyst, said a “sickness in the system” accounts for why public servants claim 10.5 days a year for illness while private sector employees average 6.4 days. The overall public sector – including education and health care workers – is close to the federal average at 10.6 days a year.

He said differences between the sectors are so significant that working in the public sector itself is a determinant of sick-leave use, rather than exposure to illness or injury.

‘I don’t want to sound like private sector workers are saints and public sector are sinners’

“I don’t want to sound like private sector workers are saints and public sector are sinners. If they had the same opportunity to game the system, I think it is human nature to take advantage of it, and the opportunities for gaming are much easier in the federal government,” said Cross.

“The rules allow people who want to work as little as possible to succeed. Is it the system or the individual? It’s a bit of both.”

The study was based on data from Statistics Canada’s labour force survey, which includes all full-time employees other than the self-employed. The survey’s finding of federal employees taking 10.5 days a year is in line with the 10.3 days that a Parliamentary Budget Office report found several years ago.

Cross’s study found the gap between the private and public sectors has also been widening. Public servants took an average of 7.2 days off in 1987 – including federal employees – compared to 10.6 days today. Most of that increase came after 1995. At the same time, private sector employees take 6.4 days, the same as they did 27 years ago.

Source: Public servants ‘gaming the system’ — take twice as many sick days as private sector workers: report

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Clement: “I’m here also for the public servant who wants to work hard, who needs sick benefits when they are truly sick.”

2015/04/24 Leave a comment

Really?

When I was truly sick (cancer), I could use my bank of sick days (and it was considerable) as well as drawing upon discretionary sick leave for executives on full salary, before going on long-term disability at 70 percent salary.

So these and related changes impact upon those with catastrophic illnesses in a very material way, not just curbing abuse (of which there is some):

But the government doesn’t necessarily expect to realize the full $900 million in savings, Treasury Board President Tony Clement said Wednesday after the weekly Conservative caucus meeting.

“The budget is the budget, and the savings are the savings,” Clement said. “But there is some breathing room for me recognized in that calculation.”

The government has told civil service unions it expects to eliminate the system that allows public servants to bank sick days and carry them over from year to year.

Ottawa is hoping instead to provide short-term disability benefits through an insurance company.

Talks have been going on for the last year and are expected to last until at least June with 47 meeting days scheduled to take place, on top of the nearly 200 negotiating sessions that have been held so far.

Clement said he wants to bargain in good faith, even though the government is already counting the $900 million in savings from future sick leave liability toward its projected $1.4-billion surplus in 2015-16.

“They clearly want a Liberal or an NDP government to negotiate with, who will roll over and accept their positions,” Clement said of the unions with which he is bargaining.

“I’m here for the taxpayer,” he said. “I’m here also for the public servant who wants to work hard, who needs sick benefits when they are truly sick.”

Clement says public servants’ sick days an easy target for cuts (paywall)

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Federal government to extend sick-leave changes to executives

2015/02/24 Leave a comment

I was “lucky” that my cancer happened under the old rules:

Unlike unionized employees, executives can get an extra 130 days of paid sick days once in their careers – at the discretion of deputy ministers – which they don’t have to repay. They can use it all at once for a prolonged illness or draw upon it as needed for a recurring illness or during recovery. It’s expected this special leave would disappear under the Conservatives’ plan.

Many executives have banked more unused sick leave than other workers as a cushion in the face of prolonged illness. That stockpile would disappear too.

The government has paid 100 per cent of the executives’ premiums for disability insurance since 1990, while unionized employees contribute 15 per cent of their premium costs. It’s unclear what would happen to that perk.

Executives – along with diplomats and scientists – use the least amount of sick leave in the public service, although they claim more than their counterparts in the private sector. They typically take off less than half the number of sick-leave days of other public servants, who average about 11.5 days a year.

The Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (APEX) said the latest five-year trend showed 75 per cent of executives took less than five days annually; 54 per cent took less than one or two days and 30 per cent took no sick leave at all.

Still, APEX, which has tracked the health and work of executives with studies for more than 15 years, found executives are taking more sick days than ever. They averaged 3.5 days in 1997; 3.3 days in 2002 – then 4.3 days in 2007 and 5.4 days in 2012.

Again, these changes will impact those struck with catastrophic illnesses, not those who are abusing the system. And as the stats indicate, little evidence that executives are in fact abusing sick leave and related provisions.

Federal government to extend sick-leave changes to executives | Ottawa Citizen.

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Canadian Public servants have 15 million days in banked sick leave

2015/02/03 Leave a comment

Interesting evidence that suggests less abuse of sick leave than previous government messaging justifying ending the banking of sick leave (i.e., many were keeping banked sick leave as insurance in case of catastrophic illnesses like cancer):

Canada’s public servants have socked away nearly 15 million days of unused sick leave, which would disappear under the Conservative government’s plan to introduce a new short-term disability plan.

That means the 195,330 people who are working today in the core public service — those for whom Treasury Board is the employer — have banked an average of 75 days, or 15 weeks, of sick leave to fall back on in the event of a prolonged illness.

The size of the sick leave bank was released by Treasury Board in response to an order paper question from Ottawa South Liberal MP David McGuinty. The statistics show a stockpile of 14.7 million days is what remains after nearly 63,000 people left the core public service over the past six years because they had retired, resigned, were laid off, fired or died.

… Public servants can’t cash out their sick leave when they leave government, so those credits disappear and are wiped off the books. With those departures, the amount of banked sick leave sick fell from 16 million days in 2008-09 to about 14.7 million days in 2013-14. There are about 261 working days in a year.

With the drop in the overall size of the sick leave bank, the average number of sick leave credits per employee also shifted. The average employee had a bank of 76 days in 2008-09, falling to 72 days when the 2012 budget cuts began but increasing to an average 75 days per worker for the past two years.

The large number of retirements and resignations over the past six years is probably older workers who had a stockpile of sick leave credits that would have been cancelled when they left the public service. Any new hires to replace them haven’t started to build their banks.

Many predicted there would be a run on the sick leave bank over the past couple of years from disgruntled employees deciding to use some of their sick leave credits before they lost them under the government’s new plan. But nothing in the data suggests that is happening in a significant way.

McGuinty said he was hoping the questions would shed some light on the state of the health of the public service and “what’s going on here” as the government negotiates with the 17 public service unions to reform the way sick leave and disability are managed.

Public servants have 15 million days in banked sick leave | Ottawa Citizen.

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Clement wants to cut public servants’ sick days to five | Ottawa Citizen

2014/09/13 Leave a comment

Nice euphemism “most transformative:”

Bureaucrats offered Clement various options on how to overhaul the plan and the proposal he selected was considered the “most transformative.” It also shows how willing the government is to wage a major battle with unions in the run-up to the 2015 election.

The creation of a short-term disability plan is not part of negotiations as such. But the number of sick days and ability to roll over unused days is enshrined in contracts and must be re-negotiated.

The fate of banked sick leave was a big question hanging over this round of bargaining. Public servants can’t cash in their unused sick leave when they retire and many leave with weeks or months in their banks.

The government had commissioned an actuarial valuation of the $5.2 billion in banked leave, which determined bureaucrats would only use about $1.4 billion worth of the unused leave. That $1.4 billion, recorded as a liability on the government’s books, will disappear if banked sick leave is abolished.

Many hoped Clement would allow some, if not all, to be carried over so employees could dip into their credits for extra leave if they needed more than the new five-day threshold. Canada Post did this when it revamped its sick leave.

Banked sick leave provides flexibility in case of longer illness or catastrophic illness such as cancer (which helped me tremendously).

While there was abuse, and thus some need to tighten up, it does seem Canada Post found a way to do so while preserving some flexibility.

Clement wants to cut public servants’ sick days to five | Ottawa Citizen.

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Wayne Wouters: Public service reform means fixing sick leave too

2014/05/27 Leave a comment

More on Destination 2020 and the Clerk’s messaging on workplace stress and changes to sick leave:

Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters told the Citizen his Destination 2020 reforms, meant to bring the public service into the digital age, go hand-in-hand with Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s promise to replace an outdated sick-leave regime created more than 40 years ago for a very different workforce.

Wouters said he supports Clement’s plan to replace the existing accumulated sick-leave regime with a new short-term disability plan aimed at getting ill and injured workers better and back to work faster.

“Our system is not conducive to a modern workforce,” said Wouters. “People go on sick leave and they go on long-term disability and it’s out of sight, out of mind. We never think how to bring these people back, incorporate them and what kind of wellness program they need.”

A large part of stress is fundamental to the different roles of the political and official levels. When a government works well with the public service (without being captive to their advice), stress goes down. When a government is more antagonistic to the public service and often dismissive of their advice, stress goes up. Hopes that the Conservative government would evolve more into the former, given their time in office and having a majority since 2011, have not panned out as any number of recent incidents attest.

As to the replacement of sick leave and disability insurance, I have had experience on both sides of the issue: as a manager, with employees who abused the system, and as someone with an aggressive cancer which forced me to be absent for an extended period of time.

As a manager, there were few tools and support to deal with abuse in a time-efficient manner. Some employees used accumulated sick leave as “pre-retirement” time, which annoyed me to no end. But given that employees can always get a doctor to certify absence and the Health Canada verification process, while helpful, is somewhat cumbersome, there was not much that one can do. The sick leave reforms will address, at least in part, some of this abuse.

But as someone with cancer, who had banked considerable sick leave over my career, having this accumulated sick leave made a difference during my extended absence. I used it when I needed it. I also benefited from extremely supportive managers and HR. In the end, given a relapse, I ran out of sick leave and went on long-term disability.

One can argue, based upon comparability, that these changes may make sense. But as usual, when we focus on abuse, as we have to do, we penalize those who play by the rules, and who may find themselves in a catastrophic health situation where banking and flexibility can make a big difference.

Wayne Wouters: Public service reform means fixing sick leave too | Ottawa Citizen.

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